Scam or not?

[idk_ibuystuff]

I listed a laptop up for sale for $450 minimum bid and $800 Buy it Now. I got a reply from someone asking what the final price was so I just said $800. they sent me back a message saying:

"i want the item to be posted out Via AUSTRALIAN POST EXPRESS OR Via AUSTRALIAN STANDARD POST OFFICE and it will be cheaper, i will offer you the sum AU $950 for the item and the shipment kindly send me your full bank details or paypal money request to my email so that i will have to make out the payment immediate into your account.
 
Thank You."

Obviously, I'm not going to give them my full bank account details and I'm not going to ship it until the money is actually in my account. I asked if they could just pay normally through Ebay and they just sent the same message again. I'm pretty sure it's a scam or a bot, but also just want to check in on what you guys think.

[stappenden89]

This just happend to me, offered 100$ more than the buy it now price... so weird... i called ebay and they are investigating the buyer.

it was all too good to be true. The buyers feedback is squeeky clean 100% positive over 12months. also it says they are in the USA. I am in Australia. they wanted me to ship it to a address in australia? also weird...

Im glad i didn't get sucked to far into this scam!

I hope others do not fall into this trap!

[offroad7400]

It is not uncommon for eBay accounts to suddenly come alive which have been dormant for years and a scammer has stumbled onto the username and password.  The account might have 100% feedback and looks good but it has been hijacked.

Secondly, some scammers open an eBay account, purchase a dozen low value $1 items from Chinese sellers and they instantly get positive feedback and a score of 10 - 20 feedbacks which makes them look good.  They then set up a bunch of fake sale items and wait until their PayPal trial ends and fleeces the money.

Thirdly, they sell a bunch of low value popular items to get a few positive sales feedback then go on to sell the big items.

This seller looks a bit sus, they have sold $15,750 worth of presale games in 7 days, a practice which is banned under eBay Terms & Conditions but widespread.  I wonder if those buyers will receive their iPhones ?

Does this sound alarm bells ?

https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/t.daph-61

[digital*ghost]

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@offroad7400 wrote:

This seller looks a bit sus, they have sold $15,750 worth of presale games in 7 days, a practice which is banned under eBay Terms & Conditions but widespread.  I wonder if those buyers will receive their iPhones ?

Does this sound alarm bells ?

https://www.ebay.com.au/usr/t.daph-61

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Pre-sales or pre-orders are allowed, but they have to meet specific criteria.

I wouldn't have purchased one like the seller in your link primarily because they have an official ETA that's just 6 days after purchase, but a stated delivery timeframe in the description of about 6 weeks, - in other words, just after the MBG is no longer available, and perhaps just enough time to get any held funds released. 

Normally sellers looking to scam that way find a way to list as many of the scam items as possible, and use a very tempting price - often around 50% of RRP, but that seller has a variety of other items, none of the other stuff (including the iPhones) appears to be "presale", and their pre-sale game was listed pretty much on RRP. They do appear to have multiple of all their listed items, though.

Not sure about the that one, TBH - the decription for the pre-sale game appears to be written by someone for whom English is not their first language, and even mention Alipay   but all the rest of the ones I looked at (including the iPhones) just had a single line of text, presumably written by a different author. If I had to judge, I'd certainly err on the side of suspect, though.

[11dustyattic]

Definitely a scam. Report and block

[cojay-32]

This just happened to me recently whilst I was desperate to sell a coat and unfortunately I was stupid enough to fall for it... so now I am left with £150 worth of gift cards that have zero use to me... and still have this bloody jacket! 

I have reported the buyer to ebay a week ago today and yet to hear back. His name is REMOVED  if anyone else comes across him... should've known from his ID he was going to be a complete waste of life. 

[countessalmirena]

Hello, cojay-32,

You may want to check your web browser for the URL. You're actually posting on the Australian eBay community boards (and I note you're registered in the UK).

Of course, stay here if you'd like. These are useful boards and the people here have a wealth of (admittedly Australian-based) information about how to negotiate eBay and its policies and pitfalls.

Spoiler

By the way, as you'll already have noticed, the community guidelines here don't permit naming and shaming. One of the official mods has already edited your post to remove that identifying information. That does make it hard to identify repeat scammers or difficult buyers, etc. Hopefully your report to eBay about the buyer will result in the necessary action.

[sugar249]

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@cojay-32 wrote:

This just happened to me recently whilst I was desperate to sell a coat and unfortunately I was stupid enough to fall for it... so now I am left with £150 worth of gift cards that have zero use to me... and still have this bloody jacket! 

I have reported the buyer to ebay a week ago today and yet to hear back. His name is REMOVED  if anyone else comes across him... should've known from his ID he was going to be a complete waste of life. 

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Hang on that sounds like a reverse scam, you scored, You have useless Gift cards plus you have the jacket.   You can still sell the jacket and you can frame and admire your gift cards as a reminder not to get scammed.

[lyndal1838]

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@cojay-32 wrote:

This just happened to me recently whilst I was desperate to sell a coat and unfortunately I was stupid enough to fall for it... so now I am left with £150 worth of gift cards that have zero use to me... and still have this bloody jacket! 

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Why are the gift cards useless to you?

Can't you use them to pay for some things on ebay?  Or onsell them?

[cezm]

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@lyndal1838 wrote:

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@cojay-32 wrote:

This just happened to me recently whilst I was desperate to sell a coat and unfortunately I was stupid enough to fall for it... so now I am left with £150 worth of gift cards that have zero use to me... and still have this bloody jacket! 

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Why are the gift cards useless to you?

Can't you use them to pay for some things on ebay?  Or onsell them?

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Possibly the gift cards were 'stolen' and therefore not activated

[digital*ghost]

If gift cards were involved in the scam, the most common reason is the scammer asked the seller to buy them for some reason, eg the typical one would be claiming to need to send an excess amount of money above the actual price of the item (in this case the coat), and then the seller refunds the overpayment by sending gift cards back to the scammer, meanwhile the seller never sees any money at all so they essentially just buy and send gift cards (or the codes for them) to someone, somewhere. 

If they are useless, I'm guessing they were either redeemed by the scammer, or they were for somewhere where usability is limited.